https://www.reuters.com

Estonia says China has not responded to subsea cables probe request | Reuters
▻https://www.reuters.com/world/estonia-says-china-has-not-responded-subsea-cables-probe-request-2024-05-28
▻https://www.reuters.com/resizer/v2/BYXYUOC3MFNEPPVN66YJ34SFZA.jpg?auth=fb4ce3224925629cf6af70d529e5cc88c9870b4
The damaged part of a Finland-Estonia telecom cable, is seen in this undated handout picture obtained by Reuters October 27, 2023. Estonian Internal Security Service/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo

Estonia’s state prosecutor said China has not responded to a six-month-old request for help with an investigation into a Chinese ship which Estonia suspects cut two of its subsea telecoms cables.
The two cables connecting Estonia to Finland and Sweden were damaged on Oct. 7-8, and an Estonia-Finland gas pipeline was broken in what Finnish investigators believe may have been sabotage, harming energy security and raising alarm bells in the wider region.

Both Estonia, which is investigating the cables damage, and Finland, looking into the Balticconnector gas pipeline, have named the Hong Kong-registered container ship NewNew Polar Bear as the prime suspect.

“The Chinese authorities have not provided a response on executing the legal aid request as of yet”, Estonian state prosecutor Triinu Olev said in a statement on Tuesday.
“We need to collect additional evidence to determine whether the damage was caused intentionally or by accident,” she said.

China’s foreign ministry said Chinese authorities were investigating and handling the cases.

“We will actively study requests for judicial assistance according to domestic laws and relevant treaties,” ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a regular news briefing on Wednesday.
The request was sent on Nov. 10, Olev’s spokesperson told Reuters in December, while a separate legal assistance request was sent to China by the Finnish investigation.

Reuters has reported that the Chinese vessel was present at all three sites around the time of their damage, on its way to a port near St Petersburg, Russia, according to data from MarineTraffic, a ship-tracking and maritime analytics provider.

A large anchor, believed to belong to the Chinese vessel, was found near the pipeline, and investigators said the pipe and telecoms cables were likely broken as the anchor was dragged across the sea bed.

Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation told Reuters last month it had “cooperated with Chinese authorities in solving” the damage to the pipeline and there was progress in the probe.

Russia has dismissed as “rubbish” the idea that it was involved.
NewNew Polar Bear has been anchored in China’s Tianjin port since returning from Russia in December, according to MarineTraffic data.
NATO stepped up its patrols in the Baltic Sea last year after the incidents, and the Norwegian Navy shadowed the NewNew Polar Bear as it sailed over the country’s key gas pipelines.

▻https://www.reuters.com/resizer/v2/https%3A%2F%2Fcloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com%2Freuters%2FA6H
A damaged Balticconnector gas pipeline that connects Finland and Estonia is pictured in this undated handout picture in the Baltic Sea. Finnish Border Guard/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo

US military pier temporarily removed from Gaza coast for repairs | Reuters
▻https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-military-pier-operations-suspended-after-piece-breaks-off-2024-05-28

A U.S. military-built pier off Gaza’s coast is being temporarily removed after a part of the structure broke off, the Pentagon said on Tuesday, in the latest blow to efforts to deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinians.
The pier was announced by U.S. President Joe Biden in March and involved the military assembling the floating structure off the coast. Estimated to cost $320 million for the first 90 days and involve about 1,000 U.S. service members, it went into operation two weeks ago.

Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said a portion of the pier had separated and that the pier would be towed over the next 48 hours to Ashdod port in Israel for repairs.

Singh added the pier would take over a week to repair and then returned to its place off the coast of Gaza.

U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters earlier on Tuesday that bad weather was believed to be the reason that the part of the pier had broken off.

Since the pier began operations, the United Nations has transported 137 trucks of aid from the pier - the equivalent of 900 metric tons - said a U.N. World Food Programme spokesperson.

Spain denies port call for ship carrying arms to Israel
By Reuters May 16, 20249:27 PM GMT+2
▻https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/spain-denied-port-call-ship-carrying-arms-israel-2024-05-16

MADRID, May 16 (Reuters) - Spain has refused permission for an Israel-bound ship carrying arms to call at the southeastern port of Cartagena, Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said on Thursday.
Albares confirmed reports that the Marianne Danica was carrying a cargo of arms to Israel and had requested permission to call at Cartagena on May 21.
He said refusing permission to dock in Spanish ports was consistent with Spain’s policy to ban the exports of all arms to Israel since the outbreak of the war in Gaza in October.
“We have detected this ship, we have refused to allow it to dock, and I can tell you that this will be a consistent policy with any ship carrying Israeli arms and arms cargo that wants to dock in Spanish ports,” Albares told reporters in Brussels.
It was carrying nearly 27 tons in explosive material from India’s Madras, El Pais reported. (...)

#IsraelEspagne

Egypt rejects Israeli plans for Rafah crossing, sources say | Reuters
▻https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/egypt-rejects-israeli-plans-rafah-crossing-sources-say-2024-05-16

Egypt has rejected an Israeli proposal for the two countries to coordinate to re-open the Rafah crossing between Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip, and to manage its future operation, two Egyptian security sources said.

Officials from Israeli security service Shin Bet presented the plan on a visit to Cairo on Wednesday, amid rising tension between the two countries following Israel’s military advance last week into Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by war have been sheltering.

The Rafah crossing has been a main conduit for humanitarian aid entering Gaza, and an exit point for medical evacuees from the territory, where a humanitarian crisis has deepened and some people are at risk of famine. Israel took operational control of the crossing and has said it will not compromise on preventing Hamas having any future role there.

The Israeli proposal included a mechanism for how to manage the crossing after an Israeli withdrawal, the security sources said. Egypt insists the crossing should be managed only by Palestinian authorities, they added.

An Israeli official who requested anonymity said the delegation travelled to Egypt “mainly to discuss matters around Rafah, given recent developments”, but declined to elaborate.

Egypt’s foreign press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

US State Dept moves $1 bln weapons aid for Israel to congressional review, officials say
▻https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-state-dept-moves-1-bln-weapons-aid-israel-congressional-review-official-

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Monday that the U.S. would continue to provide the military assistance provided in a $26 billion supplemental funding bill passed last month, but the White House paused the bombs because “we do not believe they should be dropped in densely populated cities.”

UK insurers refuse to pay Nord Stream because blasts were ‘government’ backed - The Grayzone
▻https://thegrayzone.com/2024/04/17/uk-insurers-refuse-pay-nord-stream

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Les assurances britanniques refusent d’indemniser Nord Stream, un attentat « plus probablement que non » perpétré par un Etat !

The legal team representing high-powered insurers Lloyd’s and Arch says that since the Nord Stream explosions were “more likely than not to have been inflicted by… a government,” they have no responsibility to pay for damages to the pipelines. To succeed with that defense, the companies will presumably be compelled to prove, in court, who carried out those attacks.

British insurers are arguing that they have no obligation to honor their coverage of the Nord Stream pipelines, which were blown up in September 2022, because the unprecedented act of industrial sabotage was likely carried out by a national government.

Mobilisation propalestinienne : affrontements en cours sur le campus de l’UCLA, la police antiémeute déployée
▻https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2024/05/01/mobilisation-propalestinienne-affrontements-en-cours-sur-le-campus-de-l-ucla

https://img.lemde.fr/2024/05/01/0/0/5000/3333/1440/960/60/0/9667ff4_5348829-01-06.jpg

« Beaucoup de manifestants et de contre-manifestants pratiquent leur militantisme de manière pacifique. Mais d’autres emploient des méthodes franchement choquantes et honteuses », avait écrit le chancelier dans un message posté mardi sur le site de l’université. « Nous avons été témoins d’actes de violence. Ces incidents ont provoqué, tout particulièrement chez nos étudiants juifs, une profonde anxiété et de la peur », avait-il ajouté.

Mais sur ma tweet line on voit surtout des étudiants anti-génocide se faire attaquer par des gros bras pro-israéliens :
▻https://twitter.com/AnthonyCabassa_/status/1785573368839987269
▻https://twitter.com/i/status/1785573368839987269
▻https://twitter.com/TeresaWatanabe/status/1785580909795942766

New York says it is not moving forward with three offshore wind farms | Reuters
▻https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/new-york-says-it-is-not-moving-forward-with-three-offshore-wind-farms-2024-

New York State on Friday stalled three major offshore wind-energy projects after General Electric Vernova (GE.N), opens new tab changed the turbine design, which the state said “materially altered” the plans.
New York provisionally approved the projects in October 2023. They are Attentive Energy One being developed by TotalEnergies, Rise Light & Power and Corio Generation; Community Offshore Wind, which is backed by RWE and National Grid Ventures; and Vineyard Offshore’s Excelsior Wind.

But since then, GE Vernova decided to move from its 18 megawatt Haliade-X turbine platform to a smaller turbine.

This caused “technical and commercial complexities” for the developers, the New York State Research and Development Authority said in a statement that announced it would not sign final contracts.
“Given these developments, no final awards will be made,” NYSRDA said, adding it will “look to advance a future competitive solicitation.”

The problem is the latest hit to U.S. offshore wind energy development, which is an important component of climate plans by President Joe Biden and numerous U.S. states.
Supply chain problems and rising interest rates over the past year have forced project cancellations and billions of dollars in writedowns by major developers.
Vineyard Offshore spokesperson Andrew Doba said the developer planned to continue to bid on new projects.

GE Vernova said it aimed to continue working with New York, offshore developers and others to quickly scale offshore wind, and touted its alternative.
“...We believe our technology will better position the industry to create jobs, and strengthen the supply chain for the next chapter of offshore wind in New York and beyond," the company said in a statement.
Offshore wind industry group Oceantic said the news was disappointing, but it “will not impact the market’s overall fundamentals.”

Adrienne Esposito, executive director of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment, said: “Is it a bump in the road? Yes,...but we are still going to get there.”

Sans surprise véto des #états-unis

US to oppose Palestinian bid for full UN membership | Reuters
▻https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/un-security-council-vote-thursday-palestinian-un-membership-2024-04-18

Attaque de l’Iran : Israël demande une réunion d’urgence du Conseil de sécurité de l’Onu
▻https://www.lefigaro.fr/international/attaque-de-l-iran-israel-demande-une-reunion-du-conseil-de-securite-de-l-on

Omar Baddar عمر بدّار sur X : ▻https://twitter.com/OmarBaddar/status/1779336950836564272

It’s strange to be Israel: You violate a mountain of UN resolutions, condemn the UN at every turn, bomb UN schools & shelters, murder UN employees, & then you demand a UN meeting over another country responding to your bombing of their consulate 🤯

#chutzpah

L’armée israélienne dit retirer la plupart de ses troupes du sud de la bande de Gaza

April 7, 202411:22 AM GMT+2 | Reuters
▻https://www.reuters.com/fr/actualites/larme-isralienne-dit-retirer-la-plupart-de-ses-troupes-du-sud-de-la-bande-d

JERUSALEM, 7 avril (Reuters) - L’armée israélienne a retiré du sud de la bande de Gaza la plupart de ses troupes au sol, à l’exception d’une brigade, a annoncé dimanche un porte-parole de Tsahal, sans fournir davantage de précisions dans l’immédiat.

Russian oil arrives in Cuba after year-long hiatus | Reuters
▻https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/russian-oil-arrives-cuba-after-year-long-hiatus-2024-03-31

Cuban state-run media said at the weekend that 90,000 metric tons of Russian oil had arrived in the cash and fuel-short country to help alleviate power outages and gasoline shortages.

In 2022, Russia resumed some oil shipments to the Communist-run Caribbean island after they ceased with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

However, according to shipping data no Russian oil left the country for Cuba last year even as Russian media reported in June an agreement was reached between the two governments to supply 1.64 million metric tons of oil and derivatives annually.

Jorge Piñón, who studies Cuba’s energy infrastructure and supply at the University of Texas at Austin, put the value of the shipment at $46 million. Piñón said it was too early to tell if the arrival of the oil meant regular shipments would resume.

According to Energy and Mines Minister Vicente de la O Levy, the Communist-run country needs 8 million metric tons of oil and equivalents annually, of which 3 million tons are produced locally.

Venezuela is Cuba’s main supplier of oil, but shipments have declined in recent years. Last year Mexico exported significant amounts of oil to Cuba but has not done so this year.

Cuba has been mired in crisis since the decade began with the Gross Domestic product down 10% from the 2019 mark resulting in a scarcity of food, medicine and other basic goods.

Fuel consumption has been around 6.5 million metric tons during this period, according to the government, which has said that so far this year fuel imports have fallen further, resulting in lengthier blackouts and less gasoline.

Rising social tensions have led to more unrest than the island has seen since the 1959 revolution and mass migration, mainly to the U.S.

The Cuban government largely blames U.S. sanctions for the crisis and U.S. subversion for the unrest, charges that Washington denies.

India rescues Iranian fishing vessel hijacked by pirates off Somalia | Reuters
▻https://www.reuters.com/world/india-rescues-iranian-fishing-vessel-hijacked-by-pirates-off-somalia-2024-0

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The Indian Navy said it had freed the 23-strong crew of an Iranian fishing vessel which was seized by armed pirates off Somalia.
The Al-Kambar 786 was southwest of the Yemeni island of Socotra, in the Arabian Sea, on March 28 when it was reported to have been boarded by nine pirates, according to a naval statement on Friday.
The vessel was intercepted by the navy’s INS Sumedha and INS Trishul, leading to “over 12 hours of intense coercive tactical measures” forcing the pirates to surrender, the statement said.

The nine pirates are being brought to India under the domestic law against piracy on the high seas, the navy said in a separate statement on Saturday.

The fishing vessel’s crew of 23 Pakistani nationals were safe and received medical checks before being cleared to continue with fishing activities, the statement said.
Piracy incidents east of the Red Sea have resurfaced for the first time in nearly a decade.

Israeli strike wounds UN observers in south Lebanon, security sources say | Reuters
▻https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-strike-hits-car-carrying-un-observers-near-south-lebanon-border-sec

BEIRUT, March 30 (Reuters) - An Israeli strike on Saturday hit a vehicle carrying United Nations technical observers outside the southern Lebanese border town of Rmeish, wounding several observers, two security sources told Reuters.

The Israeli military’s spokesman Avichay Adraee denied that Israeli forces hit a vehicle belonging to the U.N. peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, UNIFIL.

There was no immediate comment from UNIFIL or from the U.N. technical observer mission UNTSO.

[…]

In November, UNIFIL said one of its patrols was hit by Israeli gunfire in southern Lebanon, without leaving casualties.
UNIFIL last month said that the Israeli military violated international law by firing on a group of clearly identifiable journalists, killing a Reuters journalist.

Collapse highlights need to protect critical foundations | Reuters
▻https://www.reuters.com/world/us/baltimore-bridge-collapse-highlights-need-protect-critical-foundations-2024

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The collapse of Baltimore’s Key Bridge has highlighted what engineers say is an urgent need to better protect the piers holding up spans over shipping channels as the size of cargo ships has grown in recent decades.

Federal authorities continue an investigation into why a massive cargo ship lost power and crashed into a pier of the Francis Scott Key Bridge early Tuesday, bringing down the structure and killing six workers who had been filling potholes atop it.

The Maryland Transportation Authority did not respond to questions about what, if any, protections were in place for the Key Bridge’s foundation piers — which bore the weight of the structure and all the vehicles on it — and whether updates might have been needed.

“The construction code has got to do better,” said Erin Bell, chair of the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences at the University of New Hampshire and an expert on bridge engineering. “Our job as engineers and our duty to society is that we learn from these failures.”

Bridges such as the one in Baltimore are classified as “fracture critical” by the federal government - meaning that if one portion of the bridge collapses, it’s likely to take down the rest of the structure with it.

According to the Federal Highway Administration, there are more than 16,800 such spans in the U.S. - including such famed structures as the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge in New York, along with the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

Maryland Governor Wes Moore said Thursday that recovering the missing workers and bringing closure to their families remained a top priority.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on Wednesday that the Key Bridge “was simply not made to withstand a direct impact on a critical support pier from a vessel that weighs about 200 million pounds.”

Bell and other engineers said that while that is correct, it doesn’t address the serious questions about what safety measures could have prevented the cargo ship from running into the pier, or absorbed the crush of the impact to keep the foundation intact.

Ireland to intervene in South Africa genocide case against Israel
By Reuters | March 27, 20245:47 PM GMT+1
▻https://www.reuters.com/world/ireland-intervene-south-africa-genocide-case-against-israel-2024-03-27

DUBLIN, March 27 (Reuters) - Ireland said on Wednesday it would intervene in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, in the strongest signal to date of Dublin’s concern about Israeli operations in Gaza since Oct. 7.
Announcing the move, Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said that while it was for the World Court to decide whether genocide is being committed, he wanted to be clear that Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and what is happening in Gaza now “represents the blatant violation of international humanitarian law on a mass scale.”
"The taking of hostages. The purposeful withholding of humanitarian assistance to civilians. The targeting of civilians and of civilian infrastructure. The indiscriminate use of explosive weapons in populated areas. The use of civilian objects for military purposes. The collective punishment of an entire population," Martin said in a statement.
“The list goes on. It has to stop. The view of the international community is clear. Enough is enough.”
In January the International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court, ordered Israel to refrain from any acts that could fall under the Genocide Convention and to ensure its troops commit no genocidal acts against Palestinians, after South Africa accused Israel of state-led genocide in Gaza.
Israel and its Western allies described the allegation as baseless. A final ruling in South Africa’s ICJ case in The Hague could take years.
Martin did not say what form the intervention would take or outline any argument Ireland plans to advance, but added that the step was decided following legal and policy analysis and consultation with several partners including South Africa.
Martin’s department said such third party interventions do not take a specific side in the dispute, but that the intervention would be an opportunity for Ireland to put forward its interpretation of one or more of the provisions of the Genocide Convention at issue in the case.
The Hamas-led attack killed 1,200 people and resulted in more than 250 being taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed more than 32,000 people, according to Hamas-run health authorities in Gaza.
Long a champion of Palestinian rights, Ireland last week joined Spain, Malta and Slovenia in taking the first steps toward recognising statehood declared by the Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in the Gaza Strip.
Israel told the countries that their plan constituted a “prize for terrorism” that would reduce the chances of a negotiated resolution to the conflict between the neighbours.

The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here.

Reporting by Padraic Halpin, Editing by William Maclean

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

#IsraelIrlande

Trump faces gag order in New York hush money criminal case | Reuters
▻https://www.reuters.com/legal/judge-orders-gag-order-trump-ny-hush-money-criminal-case-2024-03-26

Donald Trump was issued a judge’s gag order on Tuesday barring him from publicly commenting about witnesses and court staff ahead of his April 15 criminal trial involving hush money paid to a porn star.

Justice Juan Merchan granted a request by the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is prosecuting Trump, the former president and now the Republican candidate to challenge President Joe Biden for the White House.

“His statements were threatening, inflammatory, denigrating,” Merchan wrote, referring to some of Trump’s previous attacks on witnesses, prosecutors and judges in various legal cases he faces.
“Such inflammatory extrajudicial statements undoubtedly risk impeding the orderly administration of this court,” wrote the judge, who presides in the New York State Supreme Court.
Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to hide reimbursements to his former lawyer Michael Cohen for a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels to buy her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she claimed to have had with Trump a decade earlier.

Trump denies having an encounter with Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.
In a statement, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung called the gag order unconstitutional.
“American voters have a fundamental right to hear the uncensored voice of the leading candidate for the highest office in the land,” Cheung said.
Trump’s lawyers previously said a gag order would leave him defenseless against attacks by political opponents over the case.

Tuesday’s order blocked Trump from speaking about witnesses concerning their role in the case. It also blocked Trump from commenting on court staff, prosecutors other than Bragg himself, and any of their family members if those comments are meant to interfere with the case.
Merchan ruled on March 7 that jurors were to remain anonymous except to Trump, his lawyers, prosecutors and a handful of others, after prosecutors highlighted Trump’s history of publicly deriding trial jurors and grand jurors.

The looming hush money trial is one of four criminal cases Trump is confronting ahead of the Nov. 5 U.S. election. It could be the only one to reach trial before the election. He has pleaded not guilty to all and called them politically motivated.
The gag order was similar to restrictions a federal judge imposed last year in a criminal case over Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden.
In a separate, civil fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, another state judge fined Trump $15,000 last year for twice violating a gag order against publicly commenting about court staff.
Trump faces state criminal charges in Georgia over efforts to reverse his 2020 loss to Biden in the state, and federal criminal charges in Florida over his handling of sensitive government documents after leaving the White House in 2021.

Trump is appealing a $454.2 million judgment in the civil fraud case for misstating the values of his family real estate company’s properties to dupe lenders. On March 25, a mid-level state appeals court paused that judgment as long as Trump posts a smaller $175 million bond within 10 days.

Finland to resume funding to UNRWA
March 22, 2024 | Reuters
▻https://www.reuters.com/world/finland-resume-funding-unrwa-2024-03-22

HELSINKI, March 22 (Reuters) - Finland will resume funding to the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, its foreign trade and development minister said on Friday.
Several countries, including the United States and Britain, paused their funding to UNRWA after accusations by Israel that a dozen of the agency’s 13,000 staff in Gaza took part in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in Israel.
“UNRWA improving its risk management, meaning preventing and initiating close monitoring for misconduct, provides sufficient guarantees for us at this point to continue our support” Foreign Trade and Development Minister Ville Tavio said.
He told a press conference some of the Finnish money would be earmarked for risk management.
Countries including Canada, Australia and Sweden have also restored funding to UNRWA, while several Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia have increased funding.

#IsraelFinlande #UNRWA

Red Sea ballistic missile attacks trigger Asian interest in defences | Reuters
▻https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/red-sea-ballistic-missile-attacks-trigger-asian-interest-defences-2024-02-2

The use of anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs) in the Red Sea has spurred interest in Asia about the systems used to shoot them down, experts and industry officials say - although China, with its huge ASBM arsenal, presents a tougher challenge.

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) media releases from Nov. 27 - the world’s first documented use of an ASBM in combat - to Feb. 20 mention a total of 48 ASBMs and 12 interceptions in the Red Sea. Those releases noted that many ASBMs fired by the Iran-aligned Yemeni Houthis posed no danger and were not engaged.

On the sidelines of the Singapore Airshow this week, a senior executive at a U.S. defence contractor said the air defence activity in the Red Sea and in Ukraine had caught the attention of potential customers in Asia.

“What we’re seeing is demand increase for integrated air and missile defence here,” said the executive, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter. He said that included sensors to detect targets, the weapons to shoot them down and the command-and-control systems tying it all together.

Robert Hewson of Sweden’s Saab (SAABb.ST), opens new tab said at the air show that customers in Asia were now more interested in not just countering ballistic missiles, but also small, “low-end” aerial threats such as drones that have been launched in concert with larger attacks in the Red Sea.

“It turns out we can do this ballistic missile stuff,” Hewson said. “It costs a lot of money and shoots big expensive missiles, but it looks like it all works. What we’re not really able to do reliably is handle swarms of small threats that are coming at us ... at the same time.”
[…]
The Houthis have said all their missiles are domestically produced. Experts, the U.S. military and the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency say Iran has at least provided assistance, if not weapons themselves.

In either case, the ASBMs and targeting on display in the Red Sea are rudimentary compared with what China could bring to bear, said Ankit Panda of the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace.

“The overall system complexity of Chinese ASBMs, including the range to which they aspire, outclasses the missiles we’ve seen used by the Houthis,” he said. “I think both Beijing and Washington would do well to not overinterpret lessons about the viability and limitations of ASBMs from the last few months’ experience in the Red Sea.”

Greek ship attacked in Red Sea by Houthis arrives in Aden with cargo | Reuters
▻https://www.reuters.com/world/greek-ship-attacked-red-sea-by-houthis-arrives-aden-with-cargo-2024-02-20

The Greek-flagged bulk cargo vessel Sea Champion arrived in the southern Yemeni port of Aden on Tuesday after being attacked in the Red Sea in what appeared to have been a mistaken missile strike by Houthi militia, shipping and military sources said.

Shipping risks have escalated due to repeated drone and missile strikes in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait by the Iran-aligned Houthis since November. U.S. and British forces have responded with several strikes on Houthi facilities but have so far failed to halt the attacks.

The U.S. military’s Central Command said late on Tuesday that the Houthis had fired two anti-ship ballistic missiles at the Sea Champion, a U.S.-owned bulk carrier. It said one of the missiles detonated near the ship causing minor damage.

The Sea Champion, which was ferrying corn from Argentina to Aden, the seat of Yemen’s internationally recognised government, was attacked twice on Monday, with a window damaged but no crew injuries, Greek shipping ministry sources said.

The U.S. Central Command said the Sea Champion has delivered humanitarian aid to Yemen 11 times in the past five years.
A port source in Aden and a separate shipping source said the vessel was unloading part of its cargo of some 9,229 tonnes of corn in Aden, before it heads to the northern Yemeni port of Hodeidah, an area controlled by the Houthis, where it was meant to discharge the remaining load of some 31,000 tonnes.

The port source in Aden, who declined to be identified, said the attack on the vessel was a mistake. A separate port source in Hodeidah, who also declined to be identified, said the Houthis informed them that the attack was not intentional.